Why Did I Just Do That? Understanding the Runaway Bus Underneath Your Midlife Reactions S2 EP1

Jody Brooks 0:01

You're not falling apart, you're waking up. If you're somewhere between 35 and 65, life feels like it's cracking open, the identity you built no longer fits, and the future feels terrifying, nobody around you seems to get it. Welcome, I'm Jodie Brooks, and this is Messy Midlife. Because this isn't a crisis, it's a calling to connect. Welcome back to Messy Midlife. I'm Jodie, and if you've been with me through season one, then you have already done something quite brave. We learn to become aware. We learn to notice, we built the muscle of awareness, and we created a little space between what happens to us and how we respond to it. That space is everything. That space is where life gets to change. And if you're new here, if this is the very first episode you've ever pressed play on, then welcome. I'm so glad you're here. You haven't missed anything you can't catch up on, because everything we do on this podcast comes back to one gentle idea that the mess you might be feeling in the middle of your life is not a breakdown, it's a call. It's a call to reconnect with who you actually are underneath all of it. So take a breath with me, wherever you are right now, whether you're walking the dog or driving or doing the washing up with one earbud in, just let your shoulders drop an inch. There. Right there is a space, and that is the beginning of

From Awareness to Understanding

Jody Brooks 1:46

everything. I'll be honest with you before we even start properly. I've been looking forward to this one because awareness the first principle is a bit like clearing the condensation off the windscreen. You can suddenly see, but seeing on its own isn't the same as understanding what you're really looking at. You can wipe the glass and still have no idea why the road ahead looks so unfamiliar or how on earth you ended up on this particular road in the first place. That's where we're going today, from seeing to understanding, from noticing the pattern to gently, kindly asking where on earth it came from. Today we open up a brand new chapter. Today we begin Principle 2 Understanding.

Iceberg Mind Model

Jody Brooks 2:39

Let me remind you where we got to, because it matters for today. In awareness, the first principle, I talked a lot about the iceberg. I'm a little obsessed with it. Honestly, and if you've heard me before, you'll know exactly why, and this will not be the last time I mention it. Picture an iceberg, the tip, the bit above the water, the bit everybody can see. That's our conscious mind. Now here's the thing, that gets me every single time. That tip is only about ten percent. Yep, ten percent of what's actually driving us. The other ninety percent, the vast bulk of it, it's below the water. That's the subconscious, and just like a real iceberg, the tip is not the bit doing the steering. The steering is happening down below, in the dark, in the cold, in the ebb and flow of the water it sits in. We all know it wasn't the tip of the iceberg that sank the Titanic. It was the enormous part that nobody could see below the surface. So in awareness we learn to notice not just the tip, but what lies beneath the surface. We learned to catch ourselves, we learn to create a space, a little gap between something happening and us reacting to it. And in that gap we started to hear ourselves say things like, Oh, why did I just do that? Or I don't know why I feel like this. Or my personal favourite, the one I said for years without ever questioning it, oh that's just me, that's just what I do.

The Power of Why

Jody Brooks 4:20

I've always been like that. Because once you've noticed the pattern, once you've caught yourself in the act, a new question arrives, almost on its own, and the question is why? Why did I just do that? Where does that come from? What is sitting underneath the surface of my iceberg, quietly steering me in a direction I didn't consciously choose? That question, that one small word why, is the whole of this season. Understanding is the principle of asking why, and I promise you it is one of the most liberating things you will ever do. And I know truly that some of you just felt a little clench in your stomach when I said we're going to go looking below the surface. Because for a lot of us, the idea of digging into why we are the way we are feels dangerous. It feels like opening a cupboard you've been leaning against for years to keep the door shut. What if it all falls out? What if I don't like what I find? And what if understanding why I do these things just makes me feel worse about myself? I hear you, I've felt exactly the same.

Kindness Not Fixing

Jody Brooks 5:39

So let me put your mind at rest right now before we go any further. I want to say something right at the start, and I want you to hold on to it for the whole month of understanding, because it's the most important instruction I'll give you. This is not a time to judge yourself. This is not the time to fix yourself, and it is absolutely not the time to criticize yourself. Just like in awareness, understanding is about noticing and gaining clarity, and it must always be done with kindness. We're not here to dig up the past so we can have a good telling off about it. We're not detectives building a case against ourselves. We're more like a friend sitting quietly beside ourselves saying, Oh, so that's where that came from. That makes sense. No wonder. And here's something else I need you to know, because it changes everything about how safe this work feels. In understanding, we're not yet questioning whether our beliefs are true. We're not challenging them and we're not arguing with them. We are simply noticing them. We're finding them, we're shining a light on them, and saying, Ah, there you are, I see you now. The questioning, the challenging, the deciding whether an old belief still deserves a place in your life, that comes later. That's trust in season three and honesty in season four. So if part of you is bracing right now, waiting for me to ask you to tear yourself down and rebuild, you can drop those shoulders, exhale and relax. That's not what this month is. This month is gentle, this month is curious, this month the only job is to understand. There are no wrong answers in this work, none. When you ask yourself why, whatever answer comes back is the right one. Simply because it's true for you. The answer to why is always the right answer, whatever it turns out to be. I can't tell you how much pressure that one idea takes off. So many of us have spent our whole lives trying to get the answers right at school, right at work, right for our parents, right for our partners, and here for once there is nothing to get right. There is no exam, there's no marking, there's just you and your honest answer, and a quiet nod that says Yes, that's true, isn't it? That makes sense. Of course you feel that way. Look at what you've been carrying, and remember, just like awareness, it will feel uncomfortable. Your instinct will be to not look, to hold that cupboard shut, and that is normal too. But the cupboard is never as bad as you think, and when you tackle it, you feel pretty good afterwards.

My Runaway Bus Pattern

Jody Brooks 8:51

Let me tell you where all this started for me, not the tidy version, the real one. I want to take you back into my own midlife, into the middle of my five year journey through transition, and when I was becoming painfully aware that something in me was out of step with the life I was living, when I got off the bus and decided, despite how great the outside looked, I was on the wrong bus. This was not where I was expecting to be. Here's the strange thing about awareness, it doesn't fix anything. Not straight away. What awareness did for me was actually quite uncomfortably at first, as I created that space, that pause. I began to notice the conflict between what I was doing and what I was feeling. It was like I was finally reading the messages my inner self had been sending me for years, but I still wasn't answering them. I could see the messages piling up in my inbox, I just hadn't opened a single one. And one of the biggest messages, the one I couldn't ignore any longer, was about how I behaved at work. At work I would push myself forward. I'd be the one to step up, to problem solve, to take the lead, whether anyone had asked me to or not. And I'm quite sure that for some of the people around me, I came across as a bit of a control freak, headstrong, dead set on my own ideas, difficult to shift. In fact, I'm sure they did. But that is a story for another season. Now I can say that about myself out loud without flinching, and the only reason I can is because of the space that awareness gave me. Before that space I would never have seen it, but once there was a gap, I could look back at myself, almost like watching someone else, and I could see it clearly. And here's what nobody around me could see. Underneath that confident in control, slightly headstrong man was actually an anxiety ridden, nervous wreck, someone who, even in the very moment he was taking charge, felt completely out of control on the inside. And I wonder if you know that particular loneliness, that gap between how you appear and how you feel. The version of you that walks into the room all capable and composed, on top of it, while another version of you, the real one, is somewhere underneath, heart hammering, absolutely certain you're about to be found out. It's exhausting. Holding those two selves apart, the outside one and the inside one, it takes an enormous amount of energy, both physical and emotional. And I think a huge part of what we call midlife exhaustion, that bone deep tiredness that sleep doesn't touch, is simply the cost of holding those two parts apart for so many years. I want to give you a picture for this, because I think a lot of you will recognise it, and pictures help with this stuff. They help it land where words alone can't. When one of these moments took a hold of me, it felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. I would almost float up to the other side of the room and watch myself. It was like I was watching in slow motion as the situation spiraled, and the more it spiraled, the worse it got, and the worse it got, the more it spiraled. In real time, I could see my own responses changing. I could see how my reactions were changing, and they were changing the reactions of other people around me, and as their responses hardened or cooled or pulled back, mine got worse. It was a loop, a feedback loop, tightening and tightening and tightening. Have you ever seen the film Speed, the one with the bus that cannot slow down below 50 miles an hour or it explodes? That is exactly what it felt like. I was on a runaway bus, and no matter how much I wanted to, no matter how much some clear-eyed part of me was watching and pleading, there was no stopping it. The bus just kept going, as if I thought my life had depended on it, or it might explode. This happened on the big occasions and the small ones, a tense meeting, a disagreement, sometimes something so tiny that afterwards I couldn't even explain what had escalated, even in receiving and sending emails, and I would finish those days wrung out angry, my anxiety at absolute maximum, my mind on overload, and worst of all underneath it, a huge, heavy sense of guilt and a deep, genuine feeling of fear. That's the felt sense of a triggered response. That runaway bus, I'd feel it hours later, lying awake, replaying it, thinking why, why did that happen? Why did that happen again? Why did I do that again? Notice that word again. Because that's the tell, isn't it? That's how you know you're not dealing with a one off a bad day moment. When it's again and again and again, when it's a pattern you could set your watch by, that's your subconscious at work. That's the ninety percent. A one off is a mood, a pattern is a program, and programmes were written by someone at some point for some reason. This month we go looking for the reason gently. And that word why that was the beginning, that was understanding, knocking on the door.

Light Not Quick Fix

Jody Brooks 15:07

I want to be really honest with you about something because I don't want to tell you a fairy tale or set you up for a Disney ending. There is a magic in asking why. Genuine magic. I've seen it change lives including my own, but it's not a magic solution. It's not a wand you wave once and suddenly you're healed and floating three feet off the ground in a state of permanent peace. Asking why is more like turning on a light in a room you've been stumbling around in the dark. The room doesn't change, the furniture's all still there, but suddenly you can see it. You can see where you keep banging your shin and stubbing your toe. You can see the door, and once you can see, everything becomes possible because you can't change what you can't even see. So when I talk about the power of why this month, I don't want you to hear quick fix, I want you to hear clarity. I want you to hear the light going on, the flick of the switch. Because I think a lot of us, especially in midlife, are quietly waiting for the quick fix. The one book, the one retreat, the one decision that finally sorts us out for good. The one podcast, oh, but hang on, I think you might have just found the one podcast. And I understand that longing, I really do. But transformation doesn't arrive like a lightning bolt, it arrives like a sunrise, slowly, gradually. So gradually that one day you realise the room is full of light, and you can't quite remember when it got so bright. That's what understanding is. It's the sunrise and it starts with one small why.

Asking Why Again

Jody Brooks 16:59

So there I was, aware of this pattern, aware of the runaway bust, aware of the gap between the confident face and the frightened inside. And awareness, bless it, would let me look away no more. So I started asking why do I always push to the front to lead? And with a bit of distance I could see that yes, that really was what I did. I was always the spokesperson, always the one who stepped in, even when nobody had asked me. Even when it wasn't my place, and of course, my way, my idea was always the best. But you know what? That answer on its own didn't solve a single thing. It just described the behaviour back to me. Yes, Jodie, you pushed to the front. Thanks, very helpful. I could see that. I still couldn't see the why underneath it. And that's such an important thing to understand about this work of understanding. So I'm going to say it plainly. The first answer is almost never the real answer. The first why just shows you the surface. It shows you the tip of the iceberg. To get to the steering, the real steering, you have to be willing to keep going. You have to be willing to ask why again. Think about how a small child does it. You know the way a four year old asks why about everything, and every answer just gets another why. On and on until you're at the very edge of what you actually know. Children are natural masters of this, and somewhere along the way, most of us were quietly trained out of it, usually with the response because I said so. We're taught that asking why too many times was annoying or cheeky, but that childlike persistence, that willingness to keep asking is exactly the skill we need to get back, because the gold isn't on the surface. The gold is three or four or five or even seven Y's down. Now I'm not going to walk you all the way down that staircase today, because the tool I use to do it, the actual step-by-step method, is something I'm going to hand you properly in a couple of weeks. In week three, when we get to the tools, I don't want to rush it. A good tool deserves to be laid out with care, not squeezed into the last five minutes of an opening episode. And there's no rush, remember, we're not fixing, we're just preparing to observe. But I'll tell you this, when I finally found the courage to keep asking why, past the uncomfortable surface answers, it took me somewhere I did not expect to go. It didn't take me to a meeting room, it didn't take me to work at all. It took me back to when I was about twelve years old. It's important I tell you this story properly because it's the spine of everything we're doing together this month. And before I tell it, I want to say something first gently. The story involves my stepfather, and this is in no way me being vengeful or angry or trying to settle a score. His memory of this moment might not even exist anymore, or if it does, it might be completely different from mine, and that is such an important thing to understand as we work with this principle. I do not need him to agree that my memory is correct. I do not need it to be validated by anyone. It is my memory, it is my reality, and if that is how I remember it, then that is how it's been steering my iceberg quietly for decades. The memory doesn't have to be verified by the outside world to be running the show on the inside. And that is factual. Why? Well, because I said so of course. Joking apart, hold on to that. It's one of the kindest things I can offer you this month. Your memory is your reality and it doesn't need anyone else's permission to be real.

A Childhood Moment

Jody Brooks 21:25

So I was about twelve and we lived in a public house. A pub in a small village in Oxfordshire. And if you've ever lived above or behind a pub, you'll know it's a strange sort of childhood. Your home is also a business. The people who wander through aren't guests you invited, they're customers, and there's an unspoken rule that you're always a little bit on show, a little bit a part of the furniture, a little bit expected to be pleasant, presentable, and on show. For the punters, all the time. One afternoon I walked into the bar. I can still picture it. I can even recall the smell of the cigarettes and the beer. My stepfather was there in front of the bar, talking to some customers I didn't recognise, alongside a few of the regulars, the faces I saw most days. My younger brother, five or six at the time, was down on the floor near their feet, playing happily with some tools, the way small children do, particularly my brother, who was obsessed with fixing things. I'd come in to ask a question and I couldn't tell you now what that question was. It's completely gone. Which tells you something in itself, doesn't it? About what the mind decides to keep and what it lets go. But I remember standing there, waiting for a gap in the conversation, waiting politely for the right moment to ask, being a good boy, waiting my turn. And then suddenly my stepfather turned, looked at me, and he said to the whole assembled group of customers This is the fat son. He can't tell a Phillips screwdriver from a flathead. He's quite clever though. And they all laughed. I want you to sit with that for a second, the way I had to. Because in that one sentence in front of a room full of strangers, I was handed several things all at once. I was told I was fat, I was told I was incompetent, that I couldn't even manage something as simple as knowing one screwdriver from another, and the quite clever though, tacked on the end. That little scrap somehow made it worse, not better, because it made it sound reasonable, balanced, fair, as if a fair and reasonable man had weighed me up in front of the room and delivered his honest verdict. Fat, useless with his hands, clever, I'll give him that. Next, and here's the thing about being twelve. You don't have the tools to argue with any of it. You don't stand there and think, well that's an unkind thing to say, and it says more about him than it does about me. You don't have that yet. At twelve, an adult's words, especially the words of the man who's meant to be looking out for you, land as simple fact, as truth. You don't question the verdict, you just quietly file it away as more evidence. I felt humiliated, I felt rejected, and I was angry. But not just at him, I was angry at me. Because somewhere in that moment I received more confirmation of a story I was already half believing, that I was not good enough. And I made a decision that day. I didn't know I was making it. It was made somewhere below the waterline, down in the ninety percent in the dark, but I made it all the same. I decided I was never ever going to let that happen to me again. Now here's the part that took my breath away when I first saw it. That decision made by a humiliated twelve year old boy in a pub in Oxfordshire was the thing driving my behaviour in professional meetings decades later. Think about that. The runaway bus at work, the pushing to the front, the need to control the room, the headstrong man who couldn't stop even when he could see himself doing it. That wasn't a personality trait. That wasn't just me. That was a twelve-year-old survival strategy still running on autopilot, still trying to protect me from a room full of people who might laugh. Because if I led, I controlled what people thought of me. And if I control what they thought, then they couldn't decide I was fat or stupid or not good enough. And if they couldn't decide that, then I couldn't be rejected. That was the logic. That was the old map my satnav was working from. We'll come back to the satnav a lot this month, so hold the thought of the satellite navigation. And you see how clever the subconscious is. Even when it's leading us astray, it wasn't malfunctioning. It looked at the pub at the humiliation and drawn a perfectly logical conclusion for a frightened child. Being in control keeps you safe. Then it ran that strategy faithfully for decades, in every room that even looked a little bit like that pub. A meeting full of people who might judge me, that's the pub. Take control, lead. Don't wait to be humiliated. My subconscious wasn't my enemy, it was a devoted, overprotective bodyguard, still guarding me against a threat from over forty years ago. Still throwing itself in front of danger that wasn't there anymore. I want to be careful here because I'm right at the edge of the deeper work and I promise you we'd go gently. I'm not going to fully excavate this story today. We're going to feel it this week. We'll unpack it a little more next week when we look at the blocks. We'll actually take it apart step by step, in week three with the proper tools, and by week four I'll show you how it resolves, how it settles, and how understanding takes the sting out of the story. Same story, four different jobs. It's going to deepen every single week. So if it feels raw and unfinished right now, that's alright. We're only at the feeling stage and it's exactly where we're meant to be right now. I want to pull us back up to the surface for a moment, because there's a truth in here that I don't want you to miss, and it's the most hopeful thing I know. You are not your responses. Say it with me if you like. I am not my responses. That thing you do, the snapping, the withdrawing, the overcontrolling, the people pleasing, the going quiet, whatever your version is, that is not who you are. It's not a permanent feature of your personality. It's a response. It's a piece of software that got installed a long, long time ago. Often when you were very young, usually to keep you safe. And it did keep you safe, it did its job. That's why it's still running. But a response that protected a frightened child can quietly sabotage a capable adult. The strategy that once kept you safe can be the very thing standing between you and the life you actually want. And here is the gift of understanding. Once you can see that a response is just a response, once you can trace it back to where it came from, it loosens its grip, it stops being just me and starts being a thing I learned. And anything learned can eventually be understood. And in time we can gently choose differently. Not this month, but the door opens this month. I want you to really feel the difference between those two sentences because it's everything. I'm just a controlling person and I learned to control situations because a long time ago control was the only way I knew to stay safe. The first one is a prison, it's a life sentence with no appeal and no chance of parole. That's just who I am. Nothing to be done. The second one is a door. It has a beginning which means it can have a middle, and one day it can have an end. The first one closes everything down. The second one opens everything up, and all that stands between them is understanding. That's the whole power of why. It turns a life sentence into a story, and stories unlike sentences can be understood and eventually retold.

Satnav Old Map

Jody Brooks 30:40

So let me tie this back to the iceberg one more time, because I want to leave you today with the shape of the whole season ahead in your mind. In awareness, we learn that the tip isn't steering. The 90% below the water is.

This Week's Practice

Jody Brooks 34:16

Notice the times the confidence face didn't match the frightened inside. Notice the that's me stories you tell about yourself. Because underneath every single one, there is a why, waiting to be patiently understood. You're just gathering. You're just turning the light on in the room and having a first look around. That's the whole job this week. And if you'd like a tiny bit of structure for it, here's a gentle way in. When you catch one of those moments, just ask yourself three soft questions. What did I do? How did I feel? Both on the outside and inside, and when have I felt this particular feeling before? You don't have to answer the last one. Sometimes just asking the questions is enough to make something stir, a memory, an image, a much younger version of you. If it does, be tender with whoever shows up. They were doing their best with what they had, just like you are right

Month Roadmap Ahead

Jody Brooks 35:22

now. So let me give you the shape of where we're headed. So you know you're in safe hands and there's a plan. This week, week one is the introduction. We're feeling it, we're noticing, and we're asking the first gentle why. On Wednesday I'm joined by a guest whose story of identity and reinvention is going to open this right up, and on Friday I'll bring it home. Then in week two, we look at the blocks. Where do these responses actually come from? We'll go a bit deeper into how the mind builds up these patterns and why they are so tricky. In week three, the tools. This is where I hand you the actual method I use to walk myself back from that meeting room to that pub in Oxfordshire, a proper, gentle, do-it-yourself tool. And there'll be something free waiting for you in the community to help you do it too. And in week four, integration, this is where it all comes together, where we take everything we've understood and turn it into something solid, a sense of your own values, and the beginning of an answer to the biggest question of all. What I was actually searching for was my purpose. Because a purpose is what a why becomes once it actually knows your values. And by the end of this month, you're going to be standing at the very start of that. Not with the whole thing solved, but with the ground cleared and the first foundations laid. That's a beautiful place to get to in four weeks. That's the journey. Four weeks, one story, deepening each time, and a lot of kindness along the way. You and me walking it together, one gentle why

Support and Safety

Jody Brooks 37:32

at a time. Now, if any of what I've shared today stirred something up in you, if a memory surfaced or a feeling you weren't expecting, please, please be gentle with yourself. This work can bring things up. That's normal, and it's often a sign that you're on to something real. But please hear me clearly. This podcast is here for support, for your reflection, not to replace proper care. If you're struggling, if things feel heavy or unsafe, please reach out to your doctor or a qualified mental health professional or a trusted support line in whatever part of the world you're in. There is no bravery in going it alone, and there is an enormous strength in asking for help. Asking for help is one of the most authentic things a person can ever do. And if you'd like to keep going with this, gently, in good company, come and join us in the community. That's where the free tools live and where you'll find people walking the same road and where none of this has to be done in isolation. Everything in there is free. It's a place to feel safe, seen, and completely free of judgment, which is exactly how I want you to feel every time you press play.

Final Takeaway

Jody Brooks 38:54

Now, I'm gonna leave you with this message. You're not falling apart, you're waking up. The fact that you're asking why did I just do that is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It's a sign that awareness has done its job and understanding has begun. It's the light going on in the room, it's you turning towards yourself at last with curiosity instead of criticism. This week, just notice, just collect your whys, be a kind observer of your own life, and know that whatever you find down there below the waterline, it isn't proof that you're broken, it's the beginning of understanding, and understanding is where the journey home to yourself truly begins. And if there's one thing I hope you take from today, let it be this that controlling, snapping, withdrawing, overgiving, whatever particular runaway bus you have. It's not a flaw in your character, it's not evidence that you're difficult or too much or not enough, it's a much younger version of you still doing the only job they ever knew how to do, which was to keep you safe, and the most loving thing you can possibly do is to not shout at that younger self. To stop. It's to turn towards them gently and finally ask with real curiosity and not an ounce of blame. Why? Why did we learn to do that? What were we so afraid of? What did we need that we never got? That's not an interrogation, it's a reunion. So be kind to whoever shows up this week. They've been holding the wheel for a very long time, all on their own. This month, they don't have to do it alone anymore.

Guest and Community

Jody Brooks 40:51

On Wednesday, I've got such a special guest for you to open this season. His name is Dr. William Thomas, and William has run marathons on all seven continents. But here's the part that stopped me in my tracks. He didn't start running until he was forty two. For twenty one years his whole identity was wrapped up in military life, and when that chapter closed, instead of being left standing, thinking, well, now what? He did something extraordinary. He built a brand new identity on purpose, before the old one had ever finished. His story is all about that question, but asked right at the level of identity of who am I now? It is full of hope and it's the perfect doorway into everything we're doing this month, and you'll not want to miss it. And remember, you don't just have to listen to the guest episodes of Messy Midlife, you can watch them too. Every episode is there for you on Apple, on YouTube, on Spotify, or over on the Messy Midlife homepage, whichever way feels right for you. So if you'd like to see William and me in conversation on Wednesday, you can. And if today has stirred something in you, if you're ready to stop doing this alone, I would love for you to come and join us inside the Messy Midlife community. It's warm, honest, it's completely free from judgment, and it's where all of the free tools and worksheets live, plus extra support from me. It's the place where the mess becomes the beginning, in good company with people walking exactly the same road as you. So come and find us, we've saved you a seat. The link is in the show notes below. So finally, until next time, as always, stay curious, stay kind, and keep coming home to who you really are. Thank you for spending this time with me on Messy Midlife. If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who might need to hear it today. You can find the show notes below and more resources at authenticcoaching.me. And just a little gentle reminder, Messy Midlife is here for information, reflection and personal growth. It isn't a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, therapy, or any other professional healthcare support. If you have concerns about your physical or mental health, please reach out to a qualified professional. Until next time, take good care of yourself. And remember, midlife might be messy, but it's not a crisis, it's a calling to connect.